It is well-known that children, particularly pre-school aged children, may be enticed to learn various principles through the use of play. By incorporating lessons into the game that is played, a child's attention may be captured by the enjoyment of playing the game, while at the same time the child is gaining experience in important concepts, often without even realizing that he or she is being taught. This concept may start with extremely rudimentary concepts at very young ages, such as the development of hand-to-eye coordination by the simple grasping, moving, holding, dropping, etc. of simple objects. Once simple motor skills have been developed, the child progresses incrementally to even more complicated lessons.
Even abstract subjects such as mathematics can be grounded in a child through the use of well-designed play. It is usually easier for a child to learn through the association of visual representations than by simple memorization, and concepts learned in this manner are usually retained by the child for a longer period of time. This is especially true of the rudimentary arithmetic processes such as addition, subtraction, etc. By presenting to the child a series of physical objects that correspond to the abstract principles, the young mind is more readily able to comprehend such quantities by mechanical means rather than by more difficult abstract reasoning.
In light of this, many toys and games are known in the prior art that are designed to teach some basic arithmetic skills; however, it has been found that such games are normally limited in the number of rudimentary concepts that can be taught to the child by use of the game, are uninteresting to many children, or are difficult to use. The present invention is therefore directed toward providing a physically manipulative game that is fun to play, allows for the participation of a teacher or another child, and teaches a great variety of rudimentary skills, rather than being limited to just two or three.